Across the weekend, Tom Wilson notched his 30th goal, doing so in back-to-back campaigns now. True to form, he was his usual disruptive, physical self, and during the closing stretch of Washington's Sunday triumph against Pittsburgh he set social media ablaze with some after-the-whistle antics.
A towering Penguins forward listed at six-foot-eight and 250 pounds, Elmer Soderblom, tried to throw a heavy check at Washington pivot Dylan Strome with roughly a minute remaining and Pittsburgh down 3-0.
That didn't sit well with Wilson, who pursued Soderblom against the wall, though the big Swede showed little appetite for any back-and-forth. While a linesman steered Wilson toward the Washington bench, he taunted Soderblom, and the remainder of his words landed on a live TNT microphone.
According to the broadcast audio, Wilson shouted toward Pittsburgh's bench that he would fight, repeating the challenge and tossing in an insult aimed at the group.
The fired-up exchange arrived a fortnight after Soderblom had thrown down with Scott Mayfield, the six-foot-four winger from the New York Islanders — a scrap pitting two enormous men against each other. Soderblom came out on top, unloading a flurry of heavy punches as the bout wound down.
The Pittsburgh episode wasn't his only recent brush with a live microphone going viral. Earlier in April he popped up in footage from a contest he wasn't even involved in, his name invoked amid a dust-up pitting Edmonton against Vegas, the moment Rasmus Andersson drew a chirp from Connor Murphy.
That March incident wasn't isolated either — a national feed similarly caught Wilson branding one Flyers skater a particular sort of nerd — in all likelihood Travis Konecny.
Considered among the game's sharpest chirpers, Wilson once famously needled Ryan Reaves while chatting up Joe Thornton, back in the years when that future Hall-of-Famer was still active.